Ḫarbatā /Ḫarbata/ is an
Aramaic toponym meaning “the ruin”.[6] The second part of the name means "lamp".[7]
History
In 1838, it was noted as a
Muslim village called Khurbata in the
Lydda administrative region.[8][9]
In 1863,
Victor Guérin found the village to have 400 inhabitants, along with ruins identified in local tradition as the remains of a
Christian church. He further noted five or six
cisterns, and ancient tombs. Guérin thought that this was an ancient place that was founded on a
Hebrew settlement whose original name had been lost.[10]
Socin found from an official
Ottoman village list from about 1870 that the village, called Charabta, had a population of 194, with a total of 71 houses, though the population count included only men.[11]Hartmann found that Charabta had 78 houses.[12]
In 1882, the
PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described the village, then called Khurbetha ibn es Seba, as "a small village on a ridge, with a well to the east."[13]
In the
1945 statistics, the population of Khirbat el Misbah was 600, all Muslims,[16] who owned 4,438
dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.[17] 1,026 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 2,133 used for cereals,[18] while 25 dunams were built-up (urban) land.[19]
Khirbat el Misbah 1944 1:20,000 from 1919 survey
Khirbat el Misbah 1945 1:250,000 (bottom right quadrant)
The Jordanian census of 1961 found 942 inhabitants in Kh. Misbah.[20]
There are two
mosques in the town: Omri Mosque and al-Kawthar Mosque. The former was built atop the ruins of an ancient church and was renovated in 1965. Within the town, still lay
Ancient Roman cemeteries. It has been governed by a
village council.[21]
After the
1995 accords, 19% of village land was classified as
Area B, while the remaining 81% was classified as
Area C. Israel has confiscated 61 dunams of village land in order to build the Israeli settlement of
Beit Horon.[22]
^West BankArchived 2008-12-19 at the
Wayback Machine Local Elections ( Round two)- Successful candidates by local authority, gender and No. of votes obtained, Kharbatha Misbah p 22